


Butterflies and Hurricanes

by WhereDidTayeGo



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging & YouTube RPF
Genre: Gen, but here we are, i didn't even want to post this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 16:40:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1906206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhereDidTayeGo/pseuds/WhereDidTayeGo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I met Dan and Phil at VidCon. This is my experience in third person from mine and Dan's perspectives. (and horray for titles that are also awesome Muse songs.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Butterflies and Hurricanes

_Saturday, June 28 th, 2014_

_4:00am_

_Castle Inn_

_Anaheim, California_

_“My ship went down, in a sea of sound, when I woke up alone I had everything…”_ Taylor’s eye shoot open after only being asleep for two and half hours. The body next to her moves while Taylor clumsily moves out of the bed to turn off her phone’s alarm that was going off from the sink in the small hotel room.

It was still pitch black outside, the type of darkness that was telling Taylor to climb back into bed to get at least another hour of sleep. However she had a feeling in her gut that she should just start getting ready right now, no matter how exhausted she was.

She takes a shower that wakes her up somewhat. She tries to dress quickly, but her moves are filled with sleep. Her mind is wide awake, but her body is begging for more time to be unconscious. She wrestles with the sport bra she’s needs to put on, but the humidity of the bathroom makes her skin sticky and her clothes cling to her.

Finally she walks into the room; the air conditioner had been running all night so the chill feels great on her sticky skin. She brushes and dries her hair as quietly as she can.

By 5:15am she’s out the door only to go back and grab her VidCon pass because it’s vital for her plans today.

She practically runs for the convention center, her worst fear being confirmed. The line for her heroes had already been taken in and the security guard was being an asshole and not telling anyone anything.

“Listen here, I did not travel 400 miles, wait all weekend, wake up before the sun was even up, to be told _no_ , there can’t be already 750 kids in line already,” she practically yells at the security guard.

“We’re getting more information miss,” he says.

The girls behind Taylor have almost begun to cry and Taylor was too tired to even thinking about crying. She was going to meet Dan and Phil, even if she had camp out in their goddamn hotel lobby. Another security guard walks up mumbles to the asshole in front of Taylor.

“Okay, line 12! We are letting another 50 kids in, they miscounted inside,” Taylor and the girls behind her let a cheer go up and follow the other security guard talking shit about the old guy.

They introduce themselves to each other knowing full well they were going to be well acquainted today in line. And for the next 9 hours the group of about 8 girls acts like they had known each other for years. And that’s the type of camaraderie that the Phandom comes with and it blows Taylor’s mind. That they don’t know each other from Adam and yet they’re talking like best friends and they’re leaving with inside jokes.

“Phil’s 27?” is said just as much as “Taylor/19/California,” because indeed this is the same Taylor.

Speaking of which they all squealed when they decided to put on Internet Support Group 3 because they were sitting with _the Taylor…_ it was so surreal to her.

“Gosh, is this what it feels like to be famous?” Taylor jokes with them.

She doesn’t know where the time goes. She’s falling asleep sitting up though, she calls her best friend around ten thirty right after the security guard tells them to sit back down because they were going to be there for a while.

The two talks for about fifteen or so minuets, Taylor listening to Amber’s morning voice slowly become less groggy and what she wouldn’t do to have her next to her.

“Anyway, I need I save my battery life…” Taylor says dismally.

“Yeah I know, call me after you meet them, yeah?”

“Of course, I’ll probably be crying,” Taylor laughs.

“And I’ll probably be crying with you.”

“Probably, okay love you!”

“Love you too!”

Taylor ends the call.

_Saturday, June 28 th, 2014_

_9:58am_

_Anaheim Convention Center_

_Anaheim, California_

“Are you ready?” Phil asks Dan.

They were gearing up for a six and a half hour meet up. 750 kids were lined up and ready to meet their favorite YouTubers. They found out that their line was cut off by 5:30am and that the kids in the front had been in line since 2am. Dan honestly was flattered—if not a little shocked.

It surprised him and Phil every meet-up, every convention, every radio show, and every live show—how much love this fandom has to offer. The gifts, the art, the letters, even the fan-fiction it shows the two that their subscribers are crazy, loving, and even forgiving. 

And getting in line at 2am to meet him and Phil is better than any compliment on their hair any day.

“Yeah,” Dan glanced at Phil, walked through the curtain, and the screaming began.

The meet up went smoothly and during their 30 min lunch break, they sent out their Guest of Guest, to give the kids in the blue curtain little bags of assorted candy. The ones they were about to meet had been in line for nearly nine hours. Dan and Phil noticed that a lot of the kids were looking more and more exhausted yet excited all the same. They couldn’t complain tonight—it wouldn’t feel right knowing that by the time their meet up is finished, some of the kids would’ve been in line for eleven hours.

At around 2pm a girl with dark hair parted the same way as Dan, came up wearing a My Chemical Romance t-shirt. She was shaking, she looked absolutely shattered, and yet she had the biggest smile on her face. She had brown eyes much like Dan’s; she was in a pair shorts and a pair of black Vans.

“I love your shirt by the way,” Dan says in mid hug with the girl.

“Thank you!” she says happily if not her voice very shaky.

She smelled like expensive perfume, some type of detergent, and the faintest smell of cigarette smoke. She couldn’t have been in her twenties yet, she gave off that unsure vibe of being 19. So Dan assumed the shirt she was wearing was because she genuinely liked the band and not because she wanted to impress him and Phil.

“Uh, I wrote you guys a letter,” she says not looking up. Her hair shielding her face that was probably turning pink.

“Aw thank you,” Dan says and takes it from her shaking hands, noting the dark blue and silver nail varnish and her name written in bright color marker on her VidCon community pass: _Taylor._

_Taylor/19/California_

No… maybe… she did say in the email (the part Dan left out of the video) she was going to be at VidCon…

“Would you like a photo on your phone?” Dan asks.

“Oh yeah, thanks!” She pulls her phone out of her back pocket, “Sorry, I’m shaking really bad…” when she begins to struggle with her phone briefly forgetting how to work it.

“No, it’s okay,” Phil says on her left side, gripping her right shoulder.

She gets her front camera up and hands her phone to Dan who snaps the selfie. She had a bright smile Dan noted. The type of smile that you could tell never had braces, but so naturally straight it wouldn’t make sense to have braces.

“Okay now over here!” the photographer says. She was a small woman who had been grinning and laughing with the kids all throughout the signing.

Taylor wrapped her arms around Dan and Phil’s waists.

She was a taller girl yet somehow she was _still_ a whole head shorter than Dan, barely reaching under his chin.

After the photo they gave her another hug, both feeling how even shakier she had become.

She didn’t speak much Dan and Phil also noticed. And sometimes the kids are too shocked to really say anything, especially the really awkward ones, and from what Dan could feel… the poor girl had probably been having an anxiety attack all day.

Then…

“Fuck I totally forgot, Dan!” he hears… “I forgot to tell you but thanks for the advice in Internet Support Group 3, I’m Taylor by the way!” He looks over to see the girl now with a maroon purse slung over her shoulder, a white poster rolled up in her hands and she was standing with the another girl.

“You’re welcome and that was a really good question!” Dan yells over. The two girl’s faces burst into bright smiles; they wave and walk off. Dan watches the girl from behind as long as he can before the other kid asks for a selfie. Taylor stops and her head is bowed her shoulders are shaking; she reaches for her back pocket again and pulls out her phone. _She’s crying._

It never gets old to Dan and Phil… never.

-

_2:13pm_

She walks off mentally hitting her forehead because _how in the hell did you nearly forget to tell Dan that he put you in internet support group 3?_

But then the weight of what she just did, what just happened hits her like a truck and she stops right there next to the green curtain—crying. The kids in the line giving her concerned smiles. They know she’s crying out of happiness. Various ‘are you okay?’ and ‘congratulations’ go around and she just looks over and nods and sends them a watery smile while dialing her best friend’s number.

“Taylor! How is it!”

“Oh my, god,” she sobs into the phone.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just met them… I just met Dan and Phil, oh my god why I am crying, I’m currently a hot mess express, I need my best friend here,” Taylor babbles into the phone.

Then Taylor loses it, she just ugly cries to best friend on the other side. Her best friend begins to cry too.

She doesn’t cry for long though and then she’s talking a mile a minute about what the hell just happened. She’s speaking very fast as she walks into the lobby of the convention center. Noticing that that last time she had seen the lobby the sun wasn’t even all the way up and now they were at midday. She was beginning to feel the exhaustion; the adrenaline that had been pumping through her _all weekend_ was finally starting to dissipate as she babbled on and on.

“Holy fuck, I can’t even right now Amber, I have lost the ability to can and I have no regrets,” she laughs.

45 minutes later and after another phone call to her older sister and mom, Taylor was walking back to her hotel room so she could get a small nap in before she went back to the convention center for VidCon Prom later that night.

She plants face first into the unmade bed, kicks off her shoes and is out before they hit the ground.

\--

_4:38pm_

Dan and Phil give one final hug, take one final picture, and say hello to the 750th kid in line before retreating back behind the curtain. They flop down into chairs exhausted yet jittery and happy.

They began to go through the gifts and other things. A piece of simple binder paper folded in half catches his eye as Dan and Phil is written in bright pink.

Dan reads the letter and realizes who it was from. Taylor/19/California.

She thanks them and apologizes if the letter doesn’t make sense because ‘ _I’m a piece of shit who procrastinates on everything (I think one of you can relate…) and I’m writing this at 1am when I have to be up 4 to get in line to give this to you’._ But what really makes Dan think before he hands it to Phil is that:

_“I really don’t know how to make this any simpler besides just saying thank you for saving me from myself. You two were there when I was at my lowest and I want to thank you for making me laugh again. Thank you for guiding me out of the dark and showing me that it’s perfectly okay to be in college and not have the slightest clue on what the fuck I’m going to do with the rest of my life. That it’s perfectly okay to be myself and to stop pleasing other people just because I want them to like me. I have the best friends in the world and I look up to two pretty amazing British YouTubers. So THANK YOU Dan and Phil, you two save lives every day and don’t ever think that you don’t._

_Love, Taylor.”_

“We saved her life,” Dan breathes out. He smiles and thinks _“I really am never going to get used to this.”_

 

 

_Fin._

 

**Author's Note:**

> this was so personal for me you have no idea so please be gentle. i really didn't even want to post this but idk i felt someone besides my best friend and i should read it maybe??? (idk ignore me)


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